jon: john boehner, the speaker of the house, blasting president obama's proposals to solve the fiscal cliff crisis, saying that the president wants to impose $1.6 trillion in new taxes and only about $400 billion in cuts. as you heard, the speaker says that the republicans are open to new revenues. they would like to achieve it by closing tax loopholes. that does not seem to be the way the direction is headed, and not a very optimistic assessment there from the speaker of the house, but we will continue to see which direction this all goes throughout the day and on through the month of december, i'm sure. let's get back into our discussion about what this msnbc anchor said with our news watch panel. judy miller is here. judy, to call somebody like senator mccain, who has a lengthy record of public service and his wartime service before that, to refer to him as, what, an old white guy who's losing his grip on power -- >> right. jon: that sounds racist in and of itself to me. >> it certainly sounded bigoted. and if anybody had said an old black guy, can you imagine what the outcry would